Portfolio

I’m a highly motivated and versatile PS leader with experience across multiple roles, industries, and technology domains. I apply a growth- and performance-oriented mindset to all personal and professional aspects of my life.

Technical Project Management is my trade, with a focus on delivering custom solutions that use cloud-based services and AI/ML. My differentiator is my ability to be hands-on in the details with the team.

An abridged version of my portfolio can be downloaded in PDF format here.

CORE COMPETENCIES

Planning and Executing ■ Critical Thinking ■ Problem Solving ■ Customer Experience ■ Building Team Culture

DOMAIN EXPERTISE

Professional Services ■ PMO ■ Project/Delivery Management ■ GenAI-Enabled Delivery ■ Agile ■ Waterfall ■ Hybrid ■ Cloud Adoption ■ Landing Zones ■ Multicloud ■ Cloud Migration ■ Data Center Transformation ■ FinOps ■ Cost Optimization ■ TechOps ■ DevOps ■ SRE ■ Technical Writing ■ Business Analysis ■ Presales ■ Alliances

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Director, Cloud Delivery Management
Oct 2020 → Present

I lead the delivery of PS engagements that support strategic cloud adoption and transformation initiatives for enterprise customers utilizing one or more of the big three CSPs.

My responsibilities span the full engagement lifecycle:
■ Partnering with the business to define scope and write a SOW.
■ Hiring and mobilizing a globally distributed delivery team.
■ Planning and initiating the engagement with the customer team.
■ Direct ongoing involvement in internal and external governance, P&L optimization, CSAT, and collaboration with CSP partners on account strategy.
■ Hands-on execution as a Technical DM/PM for strategic (high risk, high complexity, high impact) workstreams to generate successful outcomes.

Director of Google Cloud Practice
Nov 2019 → Oct 2020
Google Cloud PSO Delivery Lead
Apr 2018 → Nov 2019

A delivery leadership role supporting the east coast expansion of a Silicon Valley-based consultancy that was eventually acquired by IBM. My singular objective was to develop the Google Cloud portfolio of the Professional Services organization. Responsibilities cut broadly across sales engineering, account and project management, competency development and service productization, portfolio P&L, and the alliance with Google.

Key contributions:
■ First year growth of 20+ logos in the New England and NYC area Google Cloud markets.
■ Direct involvement in the full lifecycle (pre-sales through delivery) of engagement with customers adopting GCP as a Technical Account Manager, Technical Project Manager, and Cloud Architect.
■ Advanced relationship with Google by achieving Infrastructure and Cloud Migration specializations, plus Google-audited Managed Services Provider status for two consecutive years.
■ Developed FinOps and Cost Optimization capabilities of Managed Services during COVID shutdown to support the cost reduction objectives of multiple customers.
■ Acquisition of every available Google Cloud certification to establish our credibility in the partner ecosystem.

Principal Project Manager
Jun 2017 → Apr 2018

Delivery Lead for the deployment and optimization of a Virtual Assistant and Live Chat solution to one of the largest telecom organizations in the world.

The engagement model was embedded Professional Services for a Conversational AI SaaS platform, implementing a cutting-edge AI stack of Natural Language Understanding (NLU), supervised and unsupervised machine learning, and predictive analytics.

Director of Professional Services
Sep 2016 → May 2017

A leadership role in the US division of a global BPO consultancy, reporting into the C-Suite.

Key contributions:
■ Management of revenue recognition for the US Professional Services portfolio
■ Strategic Project Delivery for the largest US customer (a fortune 50 insurance provider)
■ Implementation of offshore capacity bursting and a first-generation PMO

Sabbatical
Aug 2015 → Aug 2016

I put my career on hold to pursue a once in a lifetime experience. My wife and I designed a lifestyle that made us location-independent for a year.

Our objective was simple – explore the world in a way that would never be possible with a family or in retirement. We slow-traveled literally around the planet, immersing in the cultures of sixteen countries while creating unforgettable experiences.

I taught myself WordPress along the way and built a website (whereschevin.com) to share our story in near real-time. The site generated over 100,000 unique visits from around the world.

Enterprise PMO Lead
Apr 2012 → Jul 2015

Delivery Lead for the full lifecycle of Professional Services engagements ranging from $500k to $2M in services, with an average CSAT rating of over 9 out of 10.

Also responsible for the delivery methodologies and supporting tools and templates for a PMO with over 100 Project Managers, leading a shift to agile principles and engagement in an organization with a history of traditional waterfall execution.

Contributions in this role were recognized through exceptional feedback in annual performance reviews, and being awarded the highest possible performance ranking back to back in 2013 and 2014.

SeniorTechnical Project Manager
Oct 2007 → Mar 2012

Delivery Lead for Professional Services engagements to implement emerging technologies in the contact center space, notably:

■ A first-generation Natural Language Understanding (NLU) enabled voice application
■ A first-generation hybrid cloud CCaaS platform
■ Analysis, optimization, and training of custom Speech to Text (STT) models

Software Engineer
May 2005 → Sep 2007

Viecore was a Professional Services Organization that delivered voice-enabled contact center solutions to Fortune 500 organizations. In October 2007, Viecore was acquired by Nuance.

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

SLIFEMAP
Principal Architect/Engineer
Nov 2023 → Present

A portmanteau of my last name (Slifer) and the common name for the visualization (lifemap) of every run that I’ve tracked with a device (from May 2011 → today), aggregated and rendered onto a single Google Map.

A personal project that helps me continuously improve on my understanding of a broad set of technology concepts and skills. I’ve taken this from conception to completion, and I’m the sole maintainer. This blog post describes the technical solution, which is currently closed source.

Principal Architect/Engineer
Sep 2020 → Present

A personal project that helps me continuously improve on my understanding of a broad set of technology concepts and skills. I’ve taken this from conception to completion, and I’m the sole maintainer. This blog post details the initial experience, and this blog post provides a 3 year update.

A non-exhaustive list of benefits that have come out of this project are:
■ A strong conceptual understand of CI/CD, infrastructure as code, cloud native architecture, and cost optimization
■ Hands-on experience with Terraform, Docker, Cloud Build, Cloud Run, MySQL/MariaDB, Linux/Shell Scripting, GitHub, and WordPress
■ An appreciation of the pain that comes with migrating from a legacy platform to a modern tech stack

This is the current hosting model for four websites: kevinslifer.com, whereschevin.com, littlechevin.com, and shermanstreetbeer.com. It’s virtually eliminated my hosting costs and has made the day-to-day operations of these sites very low effort.

This project is open source, and free for anyone to use. The repo is publicly available on GitHub: kslifer/wordpress-on-gcp-free-tier.

Cloud Transformation
Delivery Lead
Dec 2020 → Present

I led the delivery of the Infrastructure Modernization and Cloud Migration of a multi-year cloud transformation program for this leading US-based online travel agency.

My team modernized infrastructure and platform services for 300+ applications through a factory model, supporting cloud-native initiatives, implementing cost optimization measures, and helping customer teams upskill during their transition to operate in a CSP environment. This included delivery continuity of an 80% Ukraine-based team during the 2022 Russian invasion.

Case Study → From the Data Center to the Cloud: Priceline’s Transformation with Google Cloud and EPAM
Case Study → Priceline: Data-driven dealmakers of travel

Conversational AI Solutions
Delivery Lead
Apr 2020 → Sep 2020

I built the delivery arm of a partnership with a leading CCaaS services company to provide Conversational AI voice and chat solutions with Dialogflow and Twilio.

My responsibilities encompassed every aspect of solution delivery in the relationship:
■ Pre-sales support, both internally to the company, and externally to their end customers
■ Development of multiple reference architectures and implementation frameworks for key design patterns
■ Development of detailed reference implementation plans and RACI between the two organizations to co-deliver the final solutions

Windows Data Center Migration
Delivery Lead
Aug 2019 → Mar 2020

I led an MSP onboarding program for this prestigious American fashion label to inventory and rehost an all-Windows data center of corporate services into Google Cloud.

My involvement was front-loaded in winning the RFP and hands-on delivery in the early stages of the program. We provided a RAMP-aligned Professional Services solution, assessing the environment with StratoZone, inventorying and rationalizing the applications with their owners, generating a migration wave plan, and then presenting the findings to the customer leadership team.

This was followed by iterative execution of the migration waves with Carbonite Migrate with a hand off to 24×7 Managed Services.

Case Study → Powerful Platform Solutions for a Highly Personal Brand

Cloud Foundation & Migration
Delivery Lead
Jun 2019 → Jun 2020

I positioned this leading AI-powered conversation intelligence SaaS platform to confidently perform a rapid migration of core web services into Google Cloud in just three months.

My involvement was front-loaded with advisory services, where I designed and delivered a three day intensive workshop on Google Cloud adoption and migration patterns to the leadership team. Following the workshop, I handed them a detailed blueprint for a hybrid cloud foundation to support their objectives.

While they built their cloud foundation (based on a strong desire to be self-sufficient), I delivered a StratoZone assessment and application inventory, then build a detailed migration project plan for their core web services.

When migration time arrived, my Professional Services team collaborated with the customer to execute on the plan within an aggressive timeline, enabling them to dramatically reduce their data center footprint and plan for a near-term exit.

Case Study → Taos Develops and Delivers a Customized Managed Services Offering to Meet Client Needs

Cloud Advisory & Adoption
Delivery Lead
Feb 2019 → Sep 2020

I delivered a variety of services to the Product and IT leadership of this publicly traded digital marketing company as they embarked on a journey to adopt Google Cloud as their first CSP at scale.

My involvement was front-loaded with advisory services, primarily in the form of workshops and solutioning sessions. This led to Professional Services engagements to implement their hybrid cloud foundation and POC an InfraMod/AppMod approach to run containerized workloads on Kubernetes Engine.

Building on this success, my team collaborated with the customer on migrating the key components of a mission critical web application into the POC model.

After a successful cutover of the application to GCP, further iterations of advisory and implementation services resumed with a focus on day two priorities such as improving automation and implementing FinOps.

TECHNICAL PROFICIENCIES

Google Sheets ■ MS Excel ■ Google Slides ■ MS PowerPoint ■ Google Docs ■ MS Word ■ Jira ■ Smartsheet ■ MS Project ■ Confluence ■ SharePoint ■ Miro ■ Lucidchart ■ Diagrams.net ■ Visio ■ Slack ■ MS Teams